Two extremist ministers in the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated calls on Monday for the “resettlement” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and for the establishment of Israeli settlements in the enclave.
Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security and leader of the Jewish Power party, said the onslaught in Gaza presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza.”
“We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing,” Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his party, according to The Times of Israel.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told members of his Religious Zionism party that the “correct solution” to the conflict is “to encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees.” He added that Israel will “permanently control the territory of the Gaza Strip” and establish settlements.
Smotrich made similar comments a day earlier, saying the population of Palestinians in Gaza must be reduced. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different,” he told Israel’s Army Radio.
Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, condemned the rhetoric from Smotrich and Ben Gvir, accusing them of inciting genocide. “A day will come and these two senior ministers in the Israeli government will stand before an international tribunal for war crimes,” Tibi said.
While once on the fringes of Israeli politics, Smotrich and Ben Gvir now have significant power, and their ideas are becoming more popular. Many Israeli officials and Knesset members, including members of Netanyahu’s Likud party and the centrist Yesh Atid party, have called for other countries to take in Palestinian refugees.
Netanyahu said last week that he was looking for other countries to “absorb” Palestinians from Gaza to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He has also made clear that his vision for a post-war Gaza is open-ended Israeli military control.
If the UN court does nothing, we know it’s all a farce.
The ICJ will act, but the preliminaries and a trial on the genocide charges will be a slow and complicated process (and that’s as it should be). It will not happen quickly enough to get a final ruling that might halt the genocide or hold the perpetrators to account.
It’s possible that the court will order “provisional measures,” but Israel is fairly likely to ignore any orders it doesn’t like. That’s especially true if the US continues to provide cover for the slaughter.
https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192
Unless the Security Council acts forcefully, which the US can continue to prevent, only forces acting outside the auspices of the UN have a reasonable chance of halting the massacre. That certainly can happen, if some of the governments of the region and the world grow some balls. Of course, they haven’t so far.
Non-governmental actors could also take actions that would make continuation of the genocide too expensive for Israel. The Houthis are making an effort, but they can’t do it alone.
Thanks for the answer, although it doesn’t sound promising.
Yeah, it isn’t promising in the near term. It’s the Security Council’s job to step in and stop this. It would step in and stop it, if not for the US and its minions.
South Africa in its ICJ filing invoked the Yamashita Standard ( Command Respondibilty ) – that’s going to be a tough one for the Likud to argue against. Especially when Gov‘t Ministers are publically promoting Ethnic Cleansing.
Israel will certainly ignore anything the ICJ decides. However, the ramifications will be far reaching – travel bans, exclusion from sports competitions, trade bans, arrest warrants, and such will be the likely outcome.
Note – under the Yamashita Standard; civilian officials such as Blinken could also be held accountable for suppling military weapons.
The South Africa filing (84 pages) is extremely broad and contains a great deal of historical and contextual information to set the scene and establish intention, which is necessary in proving violations of the Genocide Convention. The Yamashita Standard probably isn’t going to be particularly important in considering the genocide case. It mostly applies to commanders in the case of specific war crimes committed at individual or unit levels. Israel’s leaders and senior commanders could not credibly claim that subordinates are responsible for the actions that collectively amount to genocide, or for formulating the necessary intent, even if the Yamashita Standard didn’t exist. And the defendant in the case before the ICJ is the State of Israel itself, not the individuals who make up the government and command the IDF.
Cases against individuals, if they are brought, would most likely be filed with the International Criminal Court or at a special tribunal established for that specific purpose, as was the case for, e.g., the former Yugoslavia. The ICC has been investigating, since 2021, possible war crimes committed by Israelis in Gaza in the 2014 “Operation Protective Edge” slaughter of thousands of Gazans. Since Israel isn’t a member state of the ICC and doesn’t accept it’s jurisdiction, and since the ICC doesn’t have a police force, nothing effective is likely to come of the existing investigation or a new one covering the current crop of war crimes. The same is true for US actors.
You’re absolutely right that the ramifications of an ICJ finding of genocide would be far reaching.
The commanders, in the IDF, ordered the tank operators and Apache helicopter pilots to fire on their own people.
Yes, apparently. But that’s not an issue that the ICJ is going to consider as it applies to individuals, because, as I’ve said, the defendant in that case is the State of Israel and the ICJ doesn’t have jurisdiction over individuals.
Technically true – the ICC is a joke.
however, imagine the BRICs+ will reach their own conclusions regarding individual accountability. Likely plenty of dual citizen Arabs being genocided. So, a Brazilian- Palestinian murdered might generate a indictment in a Brazilian court – arrest warrants honored by 87% of the world.
Read pages 69-67 of the Applicaton for provional measures;
https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf
Only Blinken????
Many more of course
The reason no one has acted is because of the power of the USD and the threat of SANCTIONS .
South Africa has acted. That’s why the matter is before the ICJ. The US can’t sanction the ICJ, although it certainly has ways to exert pressure and leverage. But that’s not really a pressing matter, because the nature of the proceeding is that it will almost certainly be ongoing for years. Keep your fingers crossed for an issuance of “provisional measures.”
Professor Finkelstein, in his interview by Chris Hedges, predicted that the end result will be that the Palestinians would be chased into the Sinai desert to die. He predicted that the world would do nothing, just like after previous “operations”, like Cast Lead, or Protective Edge. They would be a forgotten people.
He’s sadly probably right.
A lot more people have said that than just one Arab member of the Knesset.
It is obvious. It has gone to the International Criminal Court already.
The only people who don’t say that are the Biden Administration and the people actually doing it in Israel — and they know what they are doing, boast about it in Hebrew.
But are they really Israeli “extremists?” If 90% of Israelis agree with them, what measuring yardstick are we using to determine “extremism?”
I don’t recall where I read it or who wrote it, but there was some analysis on the brainwashing of the population that everyone hates them and they are never safe; Kind of like a collective, psychologically reinforced mass PTSD. Add to that biblical references of being chosen and you have mass support for “defense”.
In a somewhat smaller way, you see the same in the US; not that we are hated, but that we are exceptional, and there are always threats, because jealous leaders simply can’t tolerate our specialness and “freedom” so we have to go and fight all of them, pummeling their countries into ash and dust, for their own good. In spite of all wars being built on lies, and the lies coming to light, people still get suckered time after time.
Agreed, but you already know how competitive I can get. Who do you think is more brainwashed, the “Exceptionals” or the “Chosens?” I mean my brain feels like it is swimming and sloshing around inside my skull already.
Probably the exceptionals because they also buy into the chosen narratives?
LOL. Explains why my brain is sloshing around in my skull so much lately.
You see, the incursion on 7Oct was a rude interruption of the carefree lives of the occupants of Israel, who knew full well that on the other side of the barriers lie a massive concentration camp. It was so rude to interrupt the rave, the usual daily lives of the Israelis as they had freedom of movement, access to electricity, gas, fuel, medicines in reasonable amounts, knowing full well that those on the other side of the barriers did not. So rude.
Anti-Zionist Jews have been saying for over a century that the project is a blaspheme. The best writing about Zionism is done by anti-Zionist Jews, which only goes to show that the issue is not religion but land grab. Stealing land in order to create country for people dispersed around the world is a crack-pot notion.
“It has gone to the International Criminal Court already.”
It has gone to the International Court of Justice, the “World Court.” The International Criminal Court is a different organization, different jurisdiction and different member states.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1741493279806357824
Amazing how boldly they show their contempt for law and decency, and truth.
Resettle them on the land they were evicted from in ’48.
Regardless of what else happens, the mask has been permanently ripped off the zionist monster. They will never again enjoy the position they once did. One simple phrase denies them legitimacy while bringing fear and discomfort to those who believe in nothing; Allahu Akbar!
May it echo in your nightmares.
The operation by the 1500 or so young Palestinians who breached the barriers had an instrumental aspect to their actions. The world leaders now know the full truth of the political Zionists. My respect for the young Israelis who refuse to serve in the Israeli military has gone through the roof. These lads and ladies have a moral backbone that is lacking in some of the Israelis, particularly the settlers in the West Bank.
I see you are still admiring the Oct 7 attack by Hamas. Does it bother you that 20,000 plus people have died in last 3 months because of this attack?
Two Israeli Ministers Say ‘Resettle’ Israelis from Palestine
Why should Ben Gvir’s comments be such a shocker? “Voluntary resettlement” has always been, from the very first expression of the project, the objective of the Zionists. Only no one, outside of the true believers, has taken the trouble to read and understand what voluntary resettlement means. It was always about land grab with the support of the “Great Powers”. Today the Zionists are brazenly smearing their crack-pot ideology in the faces of the gentile, and the reaction is OMG! Nothing has changed folks. Read Der Judenstaat and see what the oringinator said. And ask yourself why his protrait hangs above Ben Gurion as he proclaims the independence of Israel in 1948.
Since 1920.
1892: Founder of the World Zionist organization, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), wrote Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews in 1896): [We shall] spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. (William James Martin, Counter Punch, PO Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558)
These two guys are nut jobs. There is simply no place for the Gaza Palestinians to go. No country wants them.
Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan: “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography book no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. . . There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab popilation.” (The Israel Lobby and Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer, P-96, #77)
I did “Notsee” that coming. 😉 By the way, what is “Lebensraum” in Hebrew ?
“blahbitty blahbitty blahbitty blah ….
Operation Blah Blah Blah
sons of a bitch …
what